Author: Ian Bothwell

Term papers are due in my classes.  Oh you should hear all the excuses  .”It’s all done. I just need to dress it up for you so it looks nice.”  And on and on they go.   I just shake my head and say, “Okay, slide it under mydoor before you go home for the holiday.”  I have a colleague who tells me I am enabling slothful habits that will not serve my students well in the real world of work.  He is probably right. To be truthful I do it more for me than for them.  It isn’t worth the hassle to hear the pathetic lies.  For once I want to hear a student say, “Hey, I was neglectful and lazy. Can you give me a break?”

I wonder how often we lie to God?  We make up all kinds of reasons for our sins when the truth is we do them because it is fun or easy.  If it is hard for a student to get away with a lie to a teacher, just think how stupid it is to try to lie to God.  I once had a teacher who told me I had to begin my prayers by praising God.  But what if I don’t feel like praising Him?  What if I am genuinely angry at Him for some earthly horror?  I have come to believe God is hungry for honesty.  I believe He is more put off by false expressions of devotion to Him than by our venting our genuine frustrations. I doubt if He can really help us until we come clean.  If we are angry with Him, just tell Him so.  He will not strike us dead with a lightening bolt. He will most likely say, “Finally an honest soul.  Now I can help.”

 

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 10, 2008

Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574

 

On my way to work this morning I noted a gas station with the lowest price I have seen in years.  I therefore purposed to stop there on my way home.  On my way home I came to a Shell station with that same price so I stopped there.   I pulled in behind a car beside a pump and immediately another car pulled in behind me.  As I got out and went to the pump I then noticed a much smaller sign that explained the cheap price was for people paying cash. Since I was using a credit card I would have to pay ten cents more per gallon.  Since I was virtually parked in I paid the extra two dollars to fill my tank.  However I will never stop there again.

It isn’t that I don’t think they should have two prices.  I just think it should be clearly indicated up on the big sign.  I felt like I had been had. I wonder how many others felt like I did and if they also decided never to come back.  Was it worth it for Shell to get an extra two dollars from customers only to permanently lose them?  I don’t think so.

As a teacher I make a point of never trapping a student.  The class prior to every exam I tell them exactly what I will be looking for and where they can find that information.  In all of our dealings we must be transparent.  When Jesus first saw Nathaniel coming to Him, Jesus said, “Behold a guileless man.  A man with no deception.”   What a great thing to have God say about He can, can’t He?

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 20, 2008

Photo by Loek Janssen.

Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574

When our son left us this morning to fly back to California, (He’s a physical therapist and he came for a week to help his dad, me, recover from knee surgery) he commented on how well he sleeps when he comes here. He sleeps in his childhood bed.  His body must remember all the lumps and bumps and it loves it.  His bed will remain empty tonight as I stand in the doorway remembering the thousands of nights I slipped in beside that bed to watch him sleep and to give the last touch of the day.  My job was to care for him, now he cares for me though he did not know that last night I slipped in one more time.

Surely there can be no verse of Scripture more meaningful than I Peter 5:7, “He cares for you.”   By calling Himself the Good Shepherd Jesus wanted to assure us we were not alone amid life’s storms and dangers.  There is someone bigger, stronger and more attentive than we.   We never have to fear the mockery or ridicule of an Elijah-like figure when he poked fun at the followers of Baal.  “It came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleeps, and must be awaked.”   Our God is always attentive and notes our every sigh.

For reasons beyond our comprehension He must sometimes allow us frustration and suffering but if we will trust Him someday all will be clarified and we will know he was always there, always caring.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 24, 2008

Photograph by Martin Damboldt

Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574

It’s frustrating to find oneself waiting an hour or so in an airport and discovering that the airport Internet service costs almost ten dollars for a temporary connection.  Savvy travelers usually can save that expense by wandering about the airport to such places as the area in front of the entrance to the airport clubs for their exclusive travelers.  They often have free Internet service inside that leaks into the terminal.  Other good spots in the terminal are the entrances to airport hotels or the shopping mall areas where some businesses have Wi-Fi for their own business usage.

How grand it is to know there is no fee, ever, for a connection with God. You don’t have to snoop around by going to such places as churches, chapels or some glorious spot in nature.  However, we must admit some places seem more conducive for us to recognize God’s presence.    I have always loved Psalm 139:7-12, “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?  If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.  If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hides not from thee; but the night shines as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.”

You don’t have to snoop around anywhere to find God.  The connection is always free and always available.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 12, 2008
Photo courtesy of  NASA.

Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574

A couple Canadian baseball teams give the World Series legitimacy. But what can we do about Miss Universe?  How do we justify that name?  It has been a long time since we have seen Miss Mars on the runway.  Considering the nearest extraterrestrial is at a possible minimum of four light years away it will be a quite a few generations before we will offend anyone with our all-inclusive name.

But wait each day we are visited by beings not native to our world.  ” For He shall give His angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways.” Psalm 91:11.  One of my favorite Bible stories is found in II Kings 6. Elisha was at Dothan and the enemy came to capture him.  Elisha wasn’t a bit worried because he can see something his servant cannot see.   Then Elisha prayed, “LORD, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.”   What a grand story!   Obviously we are not overstating the issue to call this a universal story.

In As You Like It Shakespeare wrote, “All the world is a stage and all men and women merely players. They have their exits and entrances and one man in his time plays many parts.”   If he had only known, Shakespeare would have written, “All the universe is a stage and each of us plays a part.” Each of us is the protagonist in our drama, the drama, the greatest drama ever.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 15, 2008

Photo courtesy of Pepper Mint (Creative Commons).

Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574

You would have enjoyed it as much as I did.  This morning at 11:30 a young man came into my room for class to begin.   He took his usual chair and looked around.  Something was wrong.  His usual cronies didn’t surround him. It was a new batch.  I started to laugh and he looked very puzzled until the light came on.   I had marked him absent from the class that had started at 10:30.   He was an hour late and now in the wrong class.

Ah the joys of being human.  I wonder how many times a day God laughs at us as we bumble our way through life.   I notice the older I get the more bumbling takes place.  Now that’s scary.   I used to have a Bible teacher in high school that told us God held us accountable for all our mistakes whether they were intentional or not.   Now that I am much older I don’t think so.  I would argue with the old stick in the mud.   I wish I could have followed him around for a day making a list of his failures.  While sins are mistakes, all mistakes are not sins.  Surely when Jesus was learning to be a carpenter he cut a few boards too short.   To err is human and Jesus was very human.

We must never allow religion to tyrannize us into being so fearful we are not perfect and thus lost.  That kind of thinking steals away the joy of living.  Instead let’s learn to laugh at ourselves and chalk mistakes up to experience.  And the longer we live the more experience we log.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 13, 2008
Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574

Perhaps one of the reasons God is so merciful to us is that we did not choose to be here.  We did not choose our parents or the day of our birth.

We did not choose to be tall or short, blond or brunette, white or black. We did not choose the social economic class of our childhood.  Because so

many of the characteristics that determine who we are were not our doing, God goes easy on us.  While it is true as adults we choose, the choices we make are very heavily weighted by things we did not choose.

Surely God must take great interest in what we do with what we got.  It is impossible to become a Ferrari if one is born with Volkswagen parts.  The interesting drama is will we choose to be the best Volkswagen possible. All are not born equal.

Now comes the good part.  II Peter 1:4 says, “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature.”   Peter is talking about now, not something in the future.  By partaking of the divine nature we can safely assume we will receive power to make the most of what we got from Mom and Dad.   We cannot blame them for our failures or lack of success because God is there to enable us to maximize each gift.  Jesus once told a parable about a man who used his talents so well his master gave him more.   I love this story.  If we wisely use what we have, God is anxious to start slipping us Ferrari parts.

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 11, 2008

Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574

When I was a boy the world was so big.  I could not conceive of anything bigger.  However, one day my Dad took me to an airport to see an airplane that flew without a propeller.  It had the giant letters TWA on the tail and it flew hundreds of miles an hour. The world grew smaller that day. Recently we watched Olympic events in China with all the clarity and detail of being there.  Within hours each of us could be in China if we needed to be. Our world has become small.  However, that is for us, the privileged.

Tonight a small boy sits on the edge of the Serengeti watching his father’s cattle.   It is his turn to stay awake to warn the family if lions or hyenas approach.  His sky is clear and crisp as the Milky Way stretches across his view.  His world is the same as was his father’s father.  It is still big. Will it be the same for his son? It is most doubtful.  Even his world is shrinking. We live on a little planet with great universal significance. Without our Bibles it would be the ultimate self-absorption to think such a thought, but our Bible, the Word of God, assures us that the Creator of all those stars seen by the cattle-watching boy has visited us and we killed Him. How bizarre is that?  We killed the One who made us!  Yet He lives and has promised to forgive us and return and take us to His Father’s house, which really, really, really is a very big place that will never grow small.

 

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 25, 2008.Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574

While browsing the musty stacks of a used book store my eye stopped on the spine of a book entitled, Truth for Our Time.   Upon opening it I saw it was published in 1888.  “Could it be,” I thought, “that the truth for 1888 is different than the truth for 2008?”   I knew that John Dewey, the first great American philosopher, believed truth is simply what works best in a time.  Could this author be taking the same position as Dewey?  Is something moral in one age and immoral in another?   The State of Texas recently seriously disrupted the lives of over 400 children because of a position of modern morality.  Yet those same moral leaders most likely go to church and hear sermons about God’s men Abraham, Isaac, David and Solomon; all of them polygamists.  The Ten Commandments clearly tell us not to kill yet some of our government’s most ardent supporters of war are conservative Christians.

Clearly morality is not so clear, which raises the question, “Are there immutable principles for all places and all times?”  It’s a serious question for serious times.  Jesus reduced the Ten Commandments to two laws.  We must love God and love our neighbors.  But how do I show my love for God?  In Matthew 25:45 Jesus said, “If you have done it unto the least of them you have done it unto me.”  So there is really only one law.  Paul seems to agree.  In Galatians 5:14 he tells us the sum of the whole law is our care for each other.  This is a truth for our time; a truth for all time.

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 10, 2008

Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574

He had an interesting barn-like home nestled in the woods.  He was an artist who somehow got along with very little income.  He was the stereotypical starving artist.  I always loved to visit him because we would sit on the porch and rock in his chair to the sounds of the woods.  One afternoon he said to me, “I have never been much of a success but I have to admit I love living here just sculpting.”

I need someone to define success for it seemed to me he was amazingly successful.   He got up each morning and lived his passion.  He made beautiful art.  He had little or no stress.  It seemed to me he was the most successful man I knew as opposed to many of my friends who were trapped in the rat race trying to live up to our culture’s definition of success.  His income was simple but his needs were simple.  While my friends were trapped in rush hour traffic on an eight-lane highway he was sitting on his porch with a good book.  How ironic that financially he wasn’t worth anything but was so rich.

We need to stop letting the world define “the good life” for us.   In Romans 12:2 Paul tells us not to be conformed to the world.  When we are thirteen years old peer pressure is everything.   As adults let’s be ourselves and forget what others think we should do.  God made each of an original and being unique we should have our own unique definition of success. “That means we will not compare ourselves with each other. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.”

Galatians 5:26  The Message

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 3, 2008

Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574